Offers for undergraduate studies have been made to more than 46,000 candidates across New South Wales and the ACT.
Universities said business and health degrees were the most popular this year with strong growth in areas such as nursing, physiotherapy and exercise science.
University of Sydney’s head of undergraduate student recruitment Kaveh Ghezel said students saw stability in health sciences.
"Students might be interested in sport and they think, 'How am I going to get involved in sport and do a university degree?' Physiotherapy is the perfect combination," he said.
The University of Sydney received the highest number of first preferences and overall preferences among applicants in NSW once again this year, a trend that had been continuing for more than a decade.
And for those students who missed out on their first preference, this wasn’t the end of the road, Mr Ghezel said.
"Bright, hardworking students will always have a place at the University of Sydney," he said.
"This is the first stop in the university application process, but there are a number of pathways available to your dream degree. Up to 30 per cent of our students entered their degree by transferring from another course."
Eighteen-year-old Ann Wen had always known she wanted to one day work in law.
An ATAR of 99.95 and a formal offer from the University of Sydney yesterday has now set her on that path.
"I think that as a human race we should be trying to protect people's civil liberties and I think that with a law degree, we can do that," she said.
Overshadowing the start of the university year was the federal government’s higher education reforms.
The issue was expected to be put front and centre of the government’s agenda when Parliament resumes next month and that is making new students like Ann feel nervous.
"You see a lot of general anxiety around young people, coming into university," she said.
"It’s a very tenuous period in our lives because we really want to go into higher education but if there were cuts to university funding or if fees were deregulated, that would crush a lot of people’s plans for the future and that’s not a place we want to be in."
The government needs six extra votes in the Senate to pass its revised higher-education legislation, which is expected to be debated when parliament returns on February 9.
The previous bill was backed by Senator Muir and fellow crossbenchers Bob Day, David Leyonhjelm and John Madigan.
Palmer United Party senator Dio Wang, who previously voted against the laws, told The Australian on Saturday he believed that in the absence of an extra $7 billion in public funding, fee deregulation "is part of the solution".
However he would support the collective decision of his party.
The revised bill keeps the interest rate for student loans at the CPI, bolsters regional scholarships and brings in the consumer watchdog to monitor fee hikes, among other changes.
- With AAP
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